36525 days to live

“Happiness path is paved with your dreams and desires,

      down this path lies creativity, love and long life.”

David Baird

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« Ma curiosité est insatiable, je vampirise l’air du temps. Pour moi chaque jour compte, et chaque jour il faut découvrir des choses. »

^{Karl Lagerfeld}

^{Directeur artistique de la Maison Chanel}

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A mental barrier to good time management skills is a negative self-concept, or what are called “self-limiting beliefs.” Many people believe that they don’t have the ability to be good at time management. They often believe that it is an inborn part of their background or heritage. But there is no gene or chromosome for poor time management, or good time management, for that matter. Your personal behaviors are very much under your own control. 

Action Exercise
Imagine that someone were to offer you a million dollars to manage your time superbly for the next thirty days. Imagine that an efficiency expert was going to follow you around with a clipboard and a video camera for one month. After thirty days if you had used your time efficiently and well, working on your highest priorities all day, every day, you will receive a prize of one million dollars. How efficient would you be over the next thirty days?

Brian Tracy

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“The outer world will always attempt to pull you this way and push you that way. There will always be external pressures from financial issues, career issues, health issues, relationship issues and more. Further, the TV news will always attempt to manipulate your emotions to increase your upset and anger at the seemingly rampant injustices of the world.

Nonetheless, you do always have the ability to resist these external stressors, and to live in inner peace and happiness. You can choose how you prefer to respond to external events, and you can train yourself to minimize your stress and maximize the joy you receive from life.

Stop! Breathe deeply.

Begin bringing peace to the outer world by regaining your own inner peace. Then use that inner peace as a platform from which to approach the outer world with perspective, understanding, and patience.”

Drink every minute to its fill; savor its taste…

Especially on a SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

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“Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”

Virginia Satir

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Realism. Why is it so difficult to be realist? To see things as they really are and not as we want them to be. To learn to accept things as they are is in my opinion the beginning of Wisdom.

“What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast”

May Sarton

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I admit it. I’m extremely impatient. It can be a blessing and a curse at different times and in different circumstances. So, most of the time, I disagree with May Sarton, because when impatience is channeled at the proper time and in a proper way, it can turn into a blessing more than curse.

Many people consider the idea trite that you are in complete control of your thoughts and your happiness is 100% up to you.
The truth is that there is nothing around us that is as controllable as our thoughts, and what goes on in our heads is truly free, that is for the time being.
One of the keys to happiness is as you grow old, to find those things that free your mind and re-center it. This may be exercise, writing, artistic endeavors, but finding that lever to freedom is a great gift and one that you owe to yourself.

Hugh Mcleod

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“Patience is the companion of wisdom”

St-Augustine

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 Patience is one of the rarest resource when we need it most.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Epicurus

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“A lot of the busyness in our lives give us a false sense of productivity. Doing a lot doesn’t mean that what we are doing is important.”

Unknown author

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These are the last words the father of Ninon de L’Enclos said before he passed away.

“Approach nearer, Ninon; you see nothing left me but a sad memory of
the pleasures that are leaving me. Their possession was not of long
duration, and that is the only complaint I have to make against
nature. But, alas! my regrets are vain. You who must survive me,
utilize precious time, and have no scruples about the quantity of your
pleasures, but only of their quality.”

The father of Ninon de L’Enclos on his deathbed

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“Inaction breeds doubt and fear.  Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it . Go out and get busy.”

Dale Carnegie

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“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience”

Victoria Holt (1906-1993)

British writer

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“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Dutch painter

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Some days, even the best dentist doesn’t feel like being a dentist.

And a lifeguard might not feel like being a lifeguard.

Fortunately, they have appointments, commitments and jobs. They have to show up. They have to start doing the work. And most of the time, this jump start is sufficient to get them over the hump, and then they go back to being in the zone and doing their best work.

Momentum is incredibly useful to someone who has to overcome fear, dig in deep and ship. Momentum gives you a reason to overcome your fear and do your art, because there are outside forces and obligations that keep you moving. Without them, you’d probably stumble and fall.

And yet…

And yet many of us fear too much momentum. We look at a project launch or a job or another new commitment as something that might get out of control. It’s one thing to be a folk singer playing to a hundred people a night in a coffeehouse, but what if the momentum builds and you become a star? A rock star? With an entourage and appearances and higher than high expectations for your next work. That’s a lot of momentum, no?

Deep down, this potential for an overwhelming response alerts the lizard brain and we hold back. We’re afraid of being part of something that feels like it might be too big for us.

Hint: it probably isn’t.

Seth Godin

“Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”

Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923)
French actress

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